Upstate New York is home to an odd-looking new variety of tomato.
The tomatoes, developed by a Cornell University plant breeder, are yellow with an oblong shape. Naturally, it’s named after a classic song by The Beatles: “Yellow Submarine.”
Phillip Griffiths, an associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Horticulture Section, in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), specializes in brassica vegetables but started tomato breeding as a fun side project to fill his Friday afternoons. He saw potential in this yellow tomato and began working with Fruition Seeds, based in the Ontario County town of Naples to develop it further.
According to a press release, Fruition Seeds spent the last two years growing and taste-testing the Yellow Submarine tomatoes. Now they’ll will head to market in 2024.
“People were just unanimously delighted by the flavor and by the shape,” said Petra Page-Mann, Fruition’s co-founder.
It’s not wholly unusual for tomatoes to be yellow; most people think of red, oval-shaped varieties, but tomatoes can be red, scarlet, yellow and even green or purple. Yellow Submarine features clear skin with an ethereal, semitranslucent look and is resistant to cracking on the vine.
According to the press release, breeding and cultivation of the Yellow Submarine tomatoes happened at both Cornell AgriTech in Geneva and at the Home C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm in Freeville. After approaching Fruition Seeds about commercializing it, Fruition solicited more than 80 ideas for a name from customers and social media users; after a vote, Yellow Submarine became official.
“We are a very community-oriented seed company,” Page-Mann said, “and so this name very much reflects the humor and delight of our community.”
Griffiths said Yellow Submarine seeds will be available to home gardeners this year. It is unlikely to be sold at grocery stores, but the seeds will grow exactly like its parent.
“A lot of exciting products get killed because they don’t have those mainstream, maximum profit angles,” Griffiths said. “It’s very easy for the economic world in which we live to cut out a lot of the exciting products that exist in the natural world. People never see them just because they’re not perceived as having as high an economic return.”
Fruition recommends eating the Yellow Submarines dipped in hummus, tossed in salads, sliced in half and dried, or enjoying them right off the vine.
Organic Yellow Submarine Cherry Tomato seeds are available for purchase at fruitionseeds.com. Twenty seeds are $4.45, 40 seeds are $7.55 and 80 seeds are $14.25.
A portion of every packet’s sales will benefit Cornell, based in Ithaca, to ensure new varieties will continue to be bred and shared “to surround us with abundance beyond our lifetimes.”